Securing agents using Secure Docking Module

Modern communication and computing devices have the potential to increase the efficiency of disaster response. Mobile agents and seamless push-to-talk communication embody decentralised and flexible technologies to leverage this potential. While mobile agent platforms are facing greater variety of security risks compared to a classical client-server approach, trusted computing is capable of alleviating these problems. This document describes design and integration of a Secure Agent Infrastructure (SAI) with a Secure Docking Module (SDM) based on trusted computing principles for crisis management support. SDM provides a single chip security device that replaces the centralized trust decision and point with a suitable distributed solution. The main goal of SDM is protecting information. The protected information is only released to a requesting host device if the host is in a trusted state and adheres to a specific set of policies. SAI relies on the crypto-material protected by SDM thus the mobile agent can be unsealed only if the host machine is in the trusted state. The paper introduces the SDM and SAI technologies, describes motivation of SDM usage, provides summary of the key concepts behind the SDM and SAI. Further we provide analysis of requirements and security considerations as well as the integration points of the proposed architecture with other involved systems and the communication adapters between agents and other legacy systems. The last section concludes the article and presents our current achievements in integration and demonstration of the proposed technologies.